The Long Way Home

Out from a month behind the U.S. Air Force secrecy curtain came the two RB-47 airmen who were released by the Russians shortly after John Kennedy's inauguration. In a prepared joint statement, followed by a question-and-answer session at Forbes Air Force Base, near Topeka,Kans., Captains Freeman B. Olmstead and John McKone (TIME cover, Feb. 3) told newsmen what happened to them after their RB-47 was shot down over the Barents Sea last July while flying a "ferret" mission to test Russian radar defenses. Their story of personal bravery under intense cold war pressures left unanswered the question of why the Air Force had kept them bottled up for so long.

Fire Returned. While refusing to answer questions about the nature of their mission, the airmen firmly verified the U.S. claim that the six-engine RB-47 was 50 miles offshore when it was attacked.

The plane that shot them down was a MIG-type fighter that opened fire from the rear without warning. The U.S. airmen "returned the fire with the RB-47's two remote-control, radar-directed 20-mm.

cannon mounted in the tail. (The U.S.

had said the RB-47 was unarmed.) The RB-47 went out of control, with hits in two engines in the left wing, and the crew of six started bailing out.

Olmstead and McKone plopped into the "extremely cold and rough" Barents Sea, were kept afloat by their automatically inflated individual life rafts until they were picked up about six hours later by a Soviet fishing trawler. They never saw any of the other crew members.-Olmstead and McKone spent the next seven months in Russian prisons, most of the time in solitary confinement. Their cells were cramped and chilly. Strong lights burned steadily, 24 hours a day. Subsisting on "small but regular quantities of rice, macaroni products and boiled meat," they lost about 40 pounds apiece during their imprisonment. They were not tortured or subjected to any physical violence, but, said Olmstead, "it was certainly very unpleasant."

Threats Rejected. For a while, the airmen were interrogated every day; then, after a few weeks, the interrogations slacked off. The Russians tried repeatedly to get Olmstead and McKone to sign "confessions" that they had been under orders to fly over Soviet territory, kept reminding them that they were being held on grave charges, punishable by death under Russian law, and hinted that their sentences might be lightened if they confessed. They refused (but they did sign some "legal documents," which they told the newsmen they were "not at liberty to discuss"). To keep his mind occupied, said Olmstead, he worked out mathematics problems in his head, played solitaire with an improvised set of cards that he made out of foil from packages of Russian cigarettes. The "things that helped us the most" during the imprisonment, said McKone, were "our faith in God, our faith in our country and our families."

Tanned and rested after a vacation at Ramey Air Force Base in Puerto Rico, Olmstead and McKone said that they were ready for "any job the Air Force gives us."

Newsman: Would you be ready to fly the same mission again?

McKone: If the Air Force orders me to do such a mission again, I would not hesitate.

Olmstead: Same here.

*The Russians handed over the body of Pilot Willard G. Palm to U.S. officials in Moscow. The other three are still unaccounted for.

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